For 70 years, Detroit students have been gliding and spinning together in the annual All-City Dance Concert. This Thursday evening, the spring tradition sponsored by Detroit Public Schools will give students an opportunity to demonstrate their skills, exhibiting a wide variety of modern dance moves.

This year's event will involve about 150 students from seven Detroit schools, including Cass Technical High School, Detroit School of Arts High School, Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School, J. R. King Academy, Ivan Ludington Magnet Middle School, Renaissance High School and Spain Elementary-Middle School. DPS expects a packed house.

According to Smith, students have prepared throughout the year for the concert, and the dancers had to pass through a DPS audition process. Smith told The Huffington Post he finds the dance program valuable not only because it teaches students creative movement, but because it engage them in a wide variety of disciplines, including science, mathematics, reasoning and logic.

"We cover terms like trajectory and speed and dynamics, and, of course, we talk about different tempos -- adding, multiplying and dividing," he said. "We're picking apart, assimilating and redistributing different concepts. Students are constantly using higher-level thinking skills."